Marrying Your Brother In The Regency Era // Jane Austen Era Drama

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S H O P P I N G

D I S C O U N T C O D E S

T R I A L S & P R O M O S

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T E C H

D E C O R

M U S I C

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L E A R N M O R E

[faithfulthecall]

In a way you can understand why their society would view it that way, but in a way it's also a bit interesting since that was still a very religious time and in the Old Testament a brother was called on to marry his brother's widow if they'd died childless and keep his brother's name alive.

[a-]

Re the brother-in-law/sister-in-law relationship: one of the reasons that Emma doesn't see Mr George Knightley as a potential lover, is that ever since her sister married George's brother John, Emma views Mr G Knightley as her BROTHER-IN-LAW. Jane Austen didn't spell this out as it would have been obvious to Regency readers. So Emma treats George Knightley like an older brother, and right from the first chapter we can see Emma bickering with him in a no-holding-back younger sister-like fashion. Emma is so locked into this brother/sister dynamic that it takes forever for her see George Knightley in a romantic light.

[melissashiels]

This literally happened in Jane's own family. Her niece, Cassandra, moved to Ireland and married George Hill. She died 3 days after the birth of her 3rd child in 1834. Cassandra's older sister Louisa, went to Ireland to visit her brother-in-law and nieces/nephews and stayed on to help. 5 years later George married Louisa.

[myheartismadeofstars]

Meanwhile i have been really into Chinese fantasy novels recently and it was forbidden to marry someone with the same family name as you, no matter if you were related or not. (So if your family was Li, you couldn't marry another person with the family name Li, even if you lived on opposite sides of the country lol)

[shawnw.]

I've done my family's history back 11 generations in what is now the United States and there are several siblings-in-law or first cousins marrying. More so in the 1600s and 1700s when communities were so small there weren't many options. The most recent was my great-great-grandfather married a twin. After many years happily married, his wife died and he married the twin. But they were past child-bearing age and it was, essentially, a marriage of convenience to financially support the 'spinster sister.' That was the 1890s.

[MajestyHammond]

“And I’m no going to deny it… that’s an interesting life choice”. 😂

[caitlintiulenev]

My regency family era uncle did this with three of my aunts. THREE… and then several generations were given his last name as middle names… up to the 1960s

[pcbassoon]

Lord Byron had an affair with his actual half sister. Admittedly, everyone was mad about it.

[aeolia]

My mom's grandmother married her dead husband's brother, lol, but this was in Utah in the 1920s, her husband died from the 1918 flu epidemic, and her brother-in-law more than likely was on the spectrum, he was single and quite a bit older, and extremely introverted, like more than normal, and their pastor/bishop told the brother-in-law basically that he should marry his widowed sister-in-law because now she's alone with 3 kids, and they went on to have 3 more kids, but they were Mormon, and when it was time to get sealed in the temple, my great-grandmother got herself and ALL her kids, even the ones with the brother-in-law, sealed to her first husband, the dead one, lol, because reverse polygamy in the temple isn't a thing, hahahahahaah, man, Mormons

[ppogepenne]

That’s why in Hamlet he’s scandalized and calls it incest when his mother and uncle get married. In a modern highschool classroom we didn’t get it, but back then it did

[chazhoosier]

This was the whole case for Henry VIII's annulment from Catherine of Aragon (who had been married to his brother Prince Arthur before he died).

[PokhrajRoy.]

Ironically, marrying cousins are definitely a thing in other cultures and in certain Indian households, men would sometimes be called upon to marry their widowed sister-in-law.

[Pardesland]

Hmm interesting. In fact, in the Jewish law, if a man dies, before he and his wife have had any children, then his widow should potentially marry his brother, in order to _"keep his seed"._

Also, when the wife of Linguist `Eli'ézer ben-Yehudàh, Dvorà, had died (it was some time in the 1890's I think...?), he married her youngest sister Ĥemdà.

[Eropne]

In Finland it is still legal to marry your cousin, though it is not common. I doubt it actually happens anymore

[drew-agay]

That last bit actually happened to my grandma. She married one brother (bio grandpa) then they separated + he died after a few years of separation. Then my papa moved in to help with her kids, and eventually they got married and had their own kids too.

[YDdraigGoch]

Thanks so much for this bit of Regency trivia, Ellie. I know, it sounds so ludicrous and ironic to us in the 2020's, where you could not marry somehow who you are not blood-related to (i.e. your brother or sister-in-law), though you could marry, well basically, one of your parents' siblings children! Ugh! I don't consider cousins marriage material!

[mrs.manrique]

Yeah, in England the wife (or their son) inherited her husband’s wealth…that wealth would go back to the brother if they were supposed to marry “siblings”…it’s most disgusting making a woman give up her wealth. 😉

I think I smell a ploy! 😂😊

[BethDiane]

"He Shall prick that annual blister/ Marriage with decreased wife's sister!" From Iolanthe, by Gilbert and Sullivan.

That's too bad that they had that law; who's going to take better care of their step-children than a blood relative? It virtually guarantees children being abused by a wicked stepmother.

My grandfather was the youngest of 12 siblings from two mothers who were sisters. They all considered themselves full siblings.

[PaulaSB]

That changed after the First with World War The Deceased Brother's Widow Act of 1921 because if the high number of deaths due to the war

[lindsey]

I love everything about the way you make videos and if there’s one account that I’m never swiping past, it’s this one